Guild Halls

Ah, Housing. One of the best ideas in an MMO, but rarely implemented well. A great money sink, a great way to express oneself, a great way to bring people and guilds together. But oh so poorly executed. And the worst? The worst of them all?! Guild Housing.

Let's lay out housing in games I've personally played and go from there.

EQ - Lol

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

LOTRO - Very basic. You had instanced towns, and not many to choose from. Each instance was the same in a given area, and had the same number of buyable plots. If one instance became too full, a new one was made. And they DID become full, especially since folks from the games inception still had land even though they hadn't played in years.

You would enter an instance, run around til you found an empty house in an unsold plot you liked, and you'd buy it. You could buy furniture and some basic decorations. The ability to move furniture and decorations was pretty good, though not nearly as well done as EQ2. It had some neat options, and you could place trophy's found from certain mobs within your houses, but that was about it. There was absolutely no functionality. The ONLY reason that you would actually want to buy a house, aside from the need to decorate something, is because you were given extra storage space by purchasing storage chests within your home. That was it. And that includes Guild Halls. You could have a common "Guild Chest" where members could place potions and crafting components, but other than that, there was really not a functional reason for Guilds to visit their guild halls.

Vanguard - I never actually bought a house, or was a member of a guild that had a guild hall in Vanguard. What I DO recall is that the building of a hall was a huge endeavor. It required different types of crafters, and an obscene amount of both materials and money. I think they did that part right.

PANTHEON - I suppose I'm not even sure Pantheon will have housing of any kind to begin with. I hope they do, especially Guild Halls. But How? And HOW can we make them useful without dividing the playerbase? How can we make members actually WANT to visit and congregate there, without taking away the need to visit towns and outposts throughtout Terminus? That's my question.

I think they should be a huge undertaking, much like Vanguard. They should be something not any ol' guild can achieve. A pinnacle of accomplishment. Something that most, if not all active members of a guild should be a part of in order to complete.

They should have functionality to them, and not purely just be for fluff. You shouldn't complete a guild hall then think "Huh, now what the hell do I do with it?". It should have a use to it, but not TOO much use as to make towns and cities obsolete.

But How? And I guess even more importantly, how many people think it's a complete waste of time?

Ah, Housing. One of the best ideas in an MMO, but rarely implemented well. A great money sink, a great way to express oneself, a great way to bring people and guilds together. But oh so poorly executed. And the worst? The worst of them all?! Guild Housing.

Let's lay out housing in games I've personally played and go from there.

EQ - Lol

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

LOTRO - Very basic. You had instanced towns, and not many to choose from. Each instance was the same in a given area, and had the same number of buyable plots. If one instance became too full, a new one was made. And they DID become full, especially since folks from the games inception still had land even though they hadn't played in years.

You would enter an instance, run around til you found an empty house in an unsold plot you liked, and you'd buy it. You could buy furniture and some basic decorations. The ability to move furniture and decorations was pretty good, though not nearly as well done as EQ2. It had some neat options, and you could place trophy's found from certain mobs within your houses, but that was about it. There was absolutely no functionality. The ONLY reason that you would actually want to buy a house, aside from the need to decorate something, is because you were given extra storage space by purchasing storage chests within your home. That was it. And that includes Guild Halls. You could have a common "Guild Chest" where members could place potions and crafting components, but other than that, there was really not a functional reason for Guilds to visit their guild halls.

Vanguard - I never actually bought a house, or was a member of a guild that had a guild hall in Vanguard. What I DO recall is that the building of a hall was a huge endeavor. It required different types of crafters, and an obscene amount of both materials and money. I think they did that part right.

PANTHEON - I suppose I'm not even sure Pantheon will have housing of any kind to begin with. I hope they do, especially Guild Halls. But How? And HOW can we make them useful without dividing the playerbase? How can we make members actually WANT to visit and congregate there, without taking away the need to visit towns and outposts throughtout Terminus? That's my question.

I think they should be a huge undertaking, much like Vanguard. They should be something not any ol' guild can achieve. A pinnacle of accomplishment. Something that most, if not all active members of a guild should be a part of in order to complete.

They should have functionality to them, and not purely just be for fluff. You shouldn't complete a guild hall then think "Huh, now what the hell do I do with it?". It should have a use to it, but not TOO much use as to make towns and cities obsolete.

But How? And I guess even more importantly, how many people think it's a complete waste of time?

-Tralyan

See I dont know if guild halls in eq2 Really divided the player base. Our guild had raid trophies all over the place not to mention we injected easily 20k plat into the economy just to pimp our hall. We had everything set perfect every room furnished just the way we wanted and we had dozens of randoms wondering through our guild hall looking at how wonderful it all looked.

Even before we had such an amazing guild hall we never visited the towns and cities and towns. Most players want to be off adventuring not looking at pretty buildings.

I also played on a PVP server and would invade the docks of qeynos all the time and even after guild halls we didnt see a big drop in randoms running around

Ah, Housing. One of the best ideas in an MMO, but rarely implemented well. A great money sink, a great way to express oneself, a great way to bring people and guilds together. But oh so poorly executed. And the worst? The worst of them all?! Guild Housing.

Let's lay out housing in games I've personally played and go from there.

EQ - Lol

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

LOTRO - Very basic. You had instanced towns, and not many to choose from. Each instance was the same in a given area, and had the same number of buyable plots. If one instance became too full, a new one was made. And they DID become full, especially since folks from the games inception still had land even though they hadn't played in years.

You would enter an instance, run around til you found an empty house in an unsold plot you liked, and you'd buy it. You could buy furniture and some basic decorations. The ability to move furniture and decorations was pretty good, though not nearly as well done as EQ2. It had some neat options, and you could place trophy's found from certain mobs within your houses, but that was about it. There was absolutely no functionality. The ONLY reason that you would actually want to buy a house, aside from the need to decorate something, is because you were given extra storage space by purchasing storage chests within your home. That was it. And that includes Guild Halls. You could have a common "Guild Chest" where members could place potions and crafting components, but other than that, there was really not a functional reason for Guilds to visit their guild halls.

Vanguard - I never actually bought a house, or was a member of a guild that had a guild hall in Vanguard. What I DO recall is that the building of a hall was a huge endeavor. It required different types of crafters, and an obscene amount of both materials and money. I think they did that part right.

PANTHEON - I suppose I'm not even sure Pantheon will have housing of any kind to begin with. I hope they do, especially Guild Halls. But How? And HOW can we make them useful without dividing the playerbase? How can we make members actually WANT to visit and congregate there, without taking away the need to visit towns and outposts throughtout Terminus? That's my question.

I think they should be a huge undertaking, much like Vanguard. They should be something not any ol' guild can achieve. A pinnacle of accomplishment. Something that most, if not all active members of a guild should be a part of in order to complete.

They should have functionality to them, and not purely just be for fluff. You shouldn't complete a guild hall then think "Huh, now what the hell do I do with it?". It should have a use to it, but not TOO much use as to make towns and cities obsolete.

But How? And I guess even more importantly, how many people think it's a complete waste of time?

-Tralyan

See I dont know if guild halls in eq2 Really divided the player base. Our guild had raid trophies all over the place not to mention we injected easily 20k plat into the economy just to pimp our hall. We had everything set perfect every room furnished just the way we wanted and we had dozens of randoms wondering through our guild hall looking at how wonderful it all looked.

Even before we had such an amazing guild hall we never visited the towns and cities and towns. Most players want to be off adventuring not looking at pretty buildings.

I also played on a PVP server and would invade the docks of qeynos all the time and even after guild halls we didnt see a big drop in randoms running around

I experienced a different reality in EQ2. Maybe it's a difference between PvP and PvE servers? I pretty much quit playing after The Shadow Oddyssey Expansion, years ago. To me, it was about the time that Queynos and Freeport began emptying out. I attributed that feeling to a number of things. Vertical progression vs horizontal progression, an imbalance in level ranges, and guild halls - This may also have been about the time that my own guild finished pimping out their own guild hall. I found myself spending all of my time their, which was nice, but as such I never had a reason to visit the cities any longer. Everything I needed was right there in the guild hall, so why would I?

Perhaps my experience differs from others. I'd be interested in hearing other folks perspective who played EQ2. As I said, that's my only complaint with how they did housing. Otherwise, I thought EQ2 was the most enjoyable and comprehensive housing system I'd ever experienced in an MMO. They did a fantastic job with it.

In contrast to that, in LOTRO, you had none of those perks with housing. You would always find crafting stations/auction houses/etc full of people in towns. Unfortunately, LOTRO crafting was a monotonous joke, and the game became so spread out with every expansion introducing new "HUBS" that all the rest got left behind. As in most MMO's, if became very top heavy. Hard to battle that. But in regards to guild halls, they were like I said merely a way to increase storage space. I recall banging my head against the wall trying to think of reasons to get my guild to our guild hall. Aside from RP reasons, there really was no incentive to. LOTRO and EQ2 were day and night in that respect.

Maybe if crafting stations in towns and cities had perks that crafting in guild halls didn't? Not huge perks, but enough that when it came to crafting important things, you'd want to do so in the towns and cities. I don't know, it's too early to think.

The EQ2 system was very vesitile and some of the creative people in our guild did some amazing things. They decorated for seasons and we had a huge fish tank made of different items. We had so many things it was just ridiculous. In the end it just got boring. Log in to guild hall 30-60 minutes before raid and hop on officers channel in voice. Do some dueling while we wait if I can get anyone to duel me. Maybe hit the training dummy to work on DPS if nothing else. I don't think I left the guild hall for months other then to go to raid and port to my house to use my mirrors.

IMO All the instances just completely segregated the population on our server and things felt lonely the longer the game went on.

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

I totally agree here. Once our guild got established and built the hall we never left it for crafting. All members could use the stations and it did not matter what level you were technically. I think we need the halls but there needs to be some limits to them.Maybe if they were all open to see to all.I can’t remember actually going to another guilds hall unless invited.Maybe a new method of guild hall should be created?

A guild is approved by the local Lord/King/Ruler, one very Large Guild Hall in the local style is provided by the Ruler that all Guilds formed in that area must share. Crafting Implements , Practice Dummies, Much Ale, Bards playing, and a Gauntlet shall be provided. Bragging, Laughing, and Arguing mixed in with the hammer of the smith and the saw of the craftspeople. Lots of room on the wall for each guild to hang trophies upon.

The arguments here are very valid and the thoughts towards guild halls also.

The problem with all these MMOs IMO is that they were static. There was no need to go into the city anytime soon. This can be delt with and handled if done right. Limit the Guilds and make us want to go into the citys frequently i.e crafting give guilds assignments that when returned to the city the reward is greater.

Guild Portals need to be recharged and can only be obtained from the city.

Limit brokerage to Guild internally only. For full marketplace must vist a city.

aquiring advancements for the guild can only be done within a city.

Instant advancement click/drag/drop take that away.

Make us actually do the labor so the reward feels greater.

Guild Halls should be a special place.

Maybe make the Guild Hall into 2 parts Closed and Open to public - Closed being the Guild Member Housing - Open Public for all to see at any given time. Stables, Crafting, Merchants, Market etc.

Im sorry but you should never Limit something just to pretend your main cities are awesome. If guild halls empty the cities thats no reason to not add a cool feature. it is the Devs problem to think up something that makes players wanna be in both locations.

The arguments here are very valid and the thoughts towards guild halls also.

The problem with all these MMOs IMO is that they were static. There was no need to go into the city anytime soon. This can be delt with and handled if done right. Limit the Guilds and make us want to go into the citys frequently i.e crafting give guilds assignments that when returned to the city the reward is greater.

Guild Portals need to be recharged and can only be obtained from the city.

Limit brokerage to Guild internally only. For full marketplace must vist a city.

aquiring advancements for the guild can only be done within a city.

Instant advancement click/drag/drop take that away.

Make us actually do the labor so the reward feels greater.

Guild Halls should be a special place.

Maybe make the Guild Hall into 2 parts Closed and Open to public - Closed being the Guild Member Housing - Open Public for all to see at any given time. Stables, Crafting, Merchants, Market etc.

These are some good ideas.

In my perfect world, starting cities would be so huge and have so much unused land that guilds could create huge Guild Halls within the City Walls in an UN-INSTANCED part of the city. Guild halls would be a humongous endeavor, much like they were in VG. They would require enough time and enough money and materials that not every guild could afford it. They would be a status symbol, akin to an epic weapon.

By keeping Guild Halls within the city walls, you take away the need for crafting stations and vendors and such within the Hall itself. The cities would stay full of both folks visiting their respective Guild Halls, as well as those on their own personal errands in the city. This keeps the playerbase together. But this only works if it were done in such a way that guild halls weren't in an instance or a separate zone all their own.

I recall in Vanguard, New Targanor. It was HUGE, and so much of it was unused. I recall seeing all of this emptiness that could easily accommodate Guild Halls, and wishing that the city was as popular as Freeport or Qeynos in EQ was.

To your points, @Yarnila, I think having brokers that only deal internally in your Halls is a great idea.

I've never been a big fan of guild portals, however - but if they were in starting cities there wouldn't really need to be a need for one. When they're in remote areas of instances within the game, it makes more sense, but even then I'd have a hard time with it. In Lotro, for example, it was just another way to teleport yourself closer to a different destination that the guild hall happened to be closer to.

Imagine it! You're in the city, you enter a Tailor's shop, and you notice just next door some construction going on. A guild has began construction on their Hall right there in the city proper. I'm not talking about one huge open space on the north side of town where guild halls can be built. I'm talking about empty plots of land WITHIN the city, as being A PART of the city, where potential Guild Halls could be built. This increases the status symbol of this project. How cool would it be to boast that you're guild bought the plot of land and build their Guild Hall right next to the friggin' Bank?

I realize that's a big undertaking. You'd have to make the city large enough to accommodate all of the guilds that would wish to do this, while also making Halls so expensive that not all Guilds could, but not too expensive that hardly any guilds can. It's a balancing act, and the prices of plots of land would have to follow the player-built economics of the game. Eventually, once the game is inundated with Gold, prices within the city would need to match that influx.

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

I totally agree here. Once our guild got established and built the hall we never left it for crafting. All members could use the stations and it did not matter what level you were technically. I think we need the halls but there needs to be some limits to them.Maybe if they were all open to see to all.I can’t remember actually going to another guilds hall unless invited.Maybe a new method of guild hall should be created?

Thoughts?

Ox

X

Oh I visited a few but most did not match our splendor. The issue like I said below is you shouldnt refuse to add guild halls because then the main cities feel empty. The devs need to add something to make the cites useful and make players want both.. in EQ2 you could set it for everyone to come visit they just couldnt use anything in there. Even without guild halls My tight knit group of 6 almost never entered freeport. We would get our supplies and head out to whatever zone we felt like pvping in that day.

Im sorry but you should never Limit something just to pretend your main cities are awesome. If guild halls empty the cities thats no reason to not add a cool feature. it is the Devs problem to think up something that makes players wanna be in both locations.

I agree, but that's what this discussion is about. Thinking of ways to make both the cities and the guild halls desirable places to be, independently.

Whether the question is "What should Guilds Halls have or not have to ensure people visit cities?" or "What should cities have or have not to ensure people visit Guild Halls"?, it all amounts to the same thing.

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

I totally agree here. Once our guild got established and built the hall we never left it for crafting. All members could use the stations and it did not matter what level you were technically. I think we need the halls but there needs to be some limits to them.Maybe if they were all open to see to all.I can’t remember actually going to another guilds hall unless invited.Maybe a new method of guild hall should be created?

Thoughts?

Ox

X

Oh I visited a few but most did not match our splendor. The issue like I said below is you shouldnt refuse to add guild halls because then the main cities feel empty. The devs need to add something to make the cites useful and make players want both.. in EQ2 you could set it for everyone to come visit they just couldnt use anything in there. Even without guild halls My tight knit group of 6 almost never entered freeport. We would get our supplies and head out to whatever zone we felt like pvping in that day.

Ok so what do the Devs need to do here? What type of scenario works better for keeping cities alive? Yarnila and Skycaster had some good ideas. How does the design of an environment for the guild hall impact the immediate location? Is this the point the Devs deviate to a new model? It seems from my experience they all function about the same. Does the current method work though? I think the Devs are looking for new ideas here too. They are going to have to instanced and that is a guess. Now the kicker is should that be part of a city? You enter a section of town and see multiple halls and support buildings? Throwing out ideas here.

I know I would like to see an integrated experience. People can move through the space and use various crafting stations maybe for a fee. Make the halls a part of the city and part of the economy. I think the hard part is hiding the content or making it guild specific is a big problem.

Are they? Genuine question. I know next to nothing when it comes to the development of an MMO, what an engine can handle or not handle, etc. etc. And I guess my next question, are you referring to the Halls themselves specifically being instanced? Or the location where guild halls are located being instanced?

I guess my question is, Vanguard was able to make a world mostly without zones or instances, and that was years and years ago. Are we still not at the point, technology wise, where we can have un-instanced guild halls that can be organically created within a City Zone?

To me, that's the best way to counteract the problem of dividing the playerbase. Even if the guild halls themselves weren't seamless, and you still had to zone into them within the city, as long as these halls were smack dab in the city proper, both Halls and Cities would remain populated.

Take away guild portals, and folks would need to at least run through the friggin' city to get to their hall. It would decrease the need for other fail-safes, such as taking away crafting stations or personal vendors. Although I do still like the idea of those amenities not having the same scope of usability in a guild hall as they would in the cities, i.e. guild only auction house vs. general auction house.

EQ2 - Very, very immersive housing system here, and an incredible amount of options when it came to decorating and location. Everquest 2, without doubt, has one of the best housing systems of any MMO I have personally ever played. You could move and manipulate furniture and decorations to your liking without being stuck to only certain axis points. You could add crafting tables, teleports, buff stations, brokers, customized vendors. Hell, you could name your pet squirrel "Aradune" if you wanted.

The problem with EQ2's housing, and guild halls in particular, is that it divided the playerbase even more. Why go with the rest of the crowd to the Auction House/Broker (Or hopefully in Pantheon's case, the "EC Tunnel") if you had one in your Guild Hall? Why go to town at all? It was another way that made EQ2 eventually feel like a ghost town.

I totally agree here. Once our guild got established and built the hall we never left it for crafting. All members could use the stations and it did not matter what level you were technically. I think we need the halls but there needs to be some limits to them.Maybe if they were all open to see to all.I can’t remember actually going to another guilds hall unless invited.Maybe a new method of guild hall should be created?

Thoughts?

Ox

X

Have to agree on EQII's housing system, loved the idea of zoning through a framed picture into another zone...that was too cool. Hope we have enough space to set up vendor stalls and such. Very immersive system over in EQII and it even had windows you could look through, and a patio to walk on outside. This was instanced housing. I thought it was pretty clever. :) As for guild halls I assume they were set up the same way, didn't spend any time there. Would be cool if there were crafting stations and things like that for guildies.

I loke the EQ2 model. I am just curious if there are different spins on this wen deployed into a game environment. I have experienced multiple types of housing but they are all the same in function and deployment. I know its early but do the Devs have any rough concepts for us to chew on?

The ONLY thing that kept me in EQ2 was the houseing!! To this day, it kills me that I have a "house" there that I loved, and a guild hall my friends designed that was phenomenal, but I have no desire to enter that game any longer. I do miss all the work that went into building/decorating them. If I was smart, I'd go take screenshots of everything, but....oh well. So, I'm very much looking forward to a place where we can do this again!

I love the idea of buying plots within the city limits to build a Keep/Guild Hall! The idea of instanced guild halls has always bothered me some, and I guess it's because I'd stand at the door with a handful of strangers waiting to get in, but we were all going different places. Instanced housing wasn't as bad, but the one thing I really love about old EQ's housing was that each guild could purchase an area and build in it, if they wanted to. But more, you could just go to an instance and buy a plot and set up shop there. You could pick a house and then totally landscape and decorate to your little heart's content. But I preferred the items you could get, or player build and purchase, in EQ2. And if you haven't figured it out, a "home body" like moi needs to feel that connection! It enhances the world experience.

Vanguard had an interesting way of doing it, but items in the guild halls we kinda hokey to me. I missed what we had been able to do in Eq2! Our "Keep" followed the story line of the Family (aka guild) and even the larger chair and the bear skin rug by the fireplace in the greatroom had a story.

The world was huge and seamless, but there were zones. The GMs knew every zone there and appeared in a flash. Players knew, but never had to think about it, however, being able to return to the Keep quickly... or a town center where it was located, would be important. Wandering thru the town, listening to the activity in the pub and the musicians playing duets or quartets around the city only served to make it more realistic! Being able to walk to the Keep, wandering thru the city and unlocking the door to YOUR special place, would be fantastic. Each Family member would have a "key" that let them in. And maybe, if some have issues with "outsiders" wandering thru, there could be an outer/common area where they could visit and then the Family area be instanced in, if that was necessary. Permissions have always been in place in EQ/2, but if someone were to visit a place they felt "at home" with and wanted to consider joining that family, maybe that would be an option.

(sorry... SO many things running thru the cranium....I hope I'm making sense!!!)

You can go to Freeport now and it's a totally NPC-run area. You never see other players and that's just sad. So many wonderful zones are deserted because the game grew and grew and pulled people apart. The only thing you hear is in /general chat saying something like, "Old Fart's recruiting for a fun, raid-minded people. Send PM to Stuffyor Faise for an invite!" *growl* NAMES are SOOOO important and if you want this type of a town/game to thrive, the naming policy has GOT to be written in stone! But one channel I did love was the EC tunnel! It added life and options. It brought people together, rather than a bazaar. Bartering was fun! Vanguard had the ... can't remember what they were called...but there was a place you could go and list your goods or buy from NPCs there. That was interesting, as well. Again, brought people together to conduct city business as well as buy/sell.

Making a functional, cohesive and slightly unique world again...it's what AG is hoping for! Communities and guilds within that can come together for the good of their server/world. Real GMs that players can identify with or at least respect again and even come up with random events, based on the game, all the while keeping order in the land. Another "cat" room might come in handy! ;) But, in order for the cities to work, it has to be based on a reality level... what happens in a city? Shopping...post office, dress shops, florists, amory, groceries, pubs, even unique player-run shops with goods they have made! ....the NEED to visit towns! Vanguard did pretty well with that, actually. Add guild halls - not a huge amount, but some - in each and maybe even "apartments" for those who can't afford single player housing yet in the burbs, and you have reasons for population.

oh... something else about housing that drove me wild: If someone can't log in for a while, for whatever reason, and their rent is due, don't charge "back rent or forfeit"! I gave up!! All my stuff was gone because I couldn't pay the exorbitant back rent! Things happen!! Especially when a player has a demanding job or family things, and if they're a casual player, don't penalize them for it. At the very least, allow guild mates to pay their rent for them until they can return. It's demoralizing to come back and your lot be vacant, escrow up, your stuff just gone and there was NOTHING you could do about it!

In my opinion guild halls destroy the hub city population. When EQ2 launched there were no guild halls and the hub cities were buzzing. When the halls hit the only people you ever saw were transition to their hall. The city itself was dead.

Imagine a new player who starts maybe 6 months after launch. The city is deserted, nobody at the crafting stations, nobody at the bank, nobody anywhere. There could be 1000 people in that city at that very moment, all huddled in their halls, but to that new player the place (and the game) is dead.

You want halls? Fine, but no crafting stations, banks, portals or anything else that should be in a city.

In my opinion guild halls destroy the hub city population. When EQ2 launched there were no guild halls and the hub cities were buzzing. When the halls hit the only people you ever saw were transition to their hall. The city itself was dead.

Imagine a new player who starts maybe 6 months after launch. The city is deserted, nobody at the crafting stations, nobody at the bank, nobody anywhere. There could be 1000 people in that city at that very moment, all huddled in their halls, but to that new player the place (and the game) is dead.

You want halls? Fine, but no crafting stations, banks, portals or anything else that should be in a city.

Or the Devs could not be lazy and make something worthwhile in the cities. EQ2 Guild halls didnt kill the Hubcities. The fact that you had Crafting stations in ever sub city of Qeyno and freeport. You had the cities of EOF you could craft all over in ROK. I could never return to the huub cities and stay fully supplied and equipped with out even trying.

Refusing to do something like guild halls soley to pretend the hub cities are amazing is lazy and bad programming

Seeing guild halls integrated into the world would be ideal. You could start off with a fixed number of locations with the understanding that not every guild is going to have a Hall immediately. You could add more potential locations in the future as long as they fit in seamlessly with the world.

Even having halls in more remote locations wouldn't be a bad thing as it would keep people travelling to those areas. How neat would it to be to recognise a guild hall and the guild it belongs to because it's the only one in that zone?

If guild halls were to actually become a possiblity I would hope that it would be a monumental task. Requiring thousands of materials to be gathered and 'donated' to build the guild hall along with a high upkeep cost in form of a tax to the city.

I like guild halls don't get me wrong but I side with others above when saying that they take away from the public feel. People tend to hide away in the guild halls. I prefer to see people out and about in the world even if they are afk. Makes the world feel alive. And definitely NO PORTALS.

And by far the best housing in any game has been Wildstar. The customizing in that games housing was always so incredible. People built amazing things. Just google around and see some of things that have been done.